When The Hunger Games premiered to massive success last winter, I knew there would be issues with its provocatively graphic premise: kids killing kids.

To me, it seemed voyeuristically violent, this populist parable about an authoritarian government that forces its youngest, most vulnerable citizens to machete each other to death in the name of public entertainment.

Sure, there was a deeper message about the power of one person — gently heroic Katniss Everdeen — to stand fast against authority and, with principled defiance, effect positive change.

But was it getting through?

Despite highbrow ravings from the critical elite — who predicted the film would “raise a cry of liberation and awakening in a new generation” (Bernie Quigley) — the immediate response was racist outrage by those who objected to the casting of African American actors in roles they envisioned as white.

Hmm. Could it be the film’s youthful audience had its head so far up its butt that the People’s Revolution it was supposed to be championing would have to wait, oh, another 1,000 years?

This, of course, would be in line with other Hollywood parables that have been mistaken, misidentified and misappropriated by audiences who consistently overlook the deeper meaning for violent special effects mayhem:

•Taxi Driver, linked to the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan;

•Natural Born Killers, cited as inspiration for the Columbine high school massacre;

Nuance? Symbolism? When it comes to blockbusters, never underestimate the audience’s penchant for missing the point.

It wasn’t until Monday night, in fact, when I talked to Kitchener’s A.J. Bridel — second runner up in the CBC reality show Over The Rainbow — that I recognized the power of Hollywood blockbusters to act as a positive force for change.

Not to be melodramatic, because this televised contest to cast the lead in an Andrew Lloyd Webber production of The Wizard Of Oz may have been many things — cheesy, contrived, over-the-top — but monumental it was not.

Still, the CBC honchos in charge based its manipulative mantra — competing Dorothys battling for the coveted ruby slippers — on the same assumption as the totalitarian overlords in The Hunger Games: that its naively youthful subjects would mindlessly play along.

“So we’re here in this competition, and there’s this atmosphere of trying kill each other off,’’ Bridel told me, making The Hunger Games comparison minutes after LaSalle native Danielle Wade won the top prize.

“And there’s only one winner. So between the 10 of us, we just decided we’re all winners. In the same way Katniss relied on several people (in The Hunger Games), that’s what kept us alive.’’

Listen, I have no idea what went on behind closed doors, or what demands the producers may or may not have made, implicitly or otherwise, but I do know that while Bridel considers the show “one of the best experiences of my life,” she felt uncomfortable enough about the behind-the-scenes machinations to throw caution to the wind and make a stand. A.J. versus Goliath.

“The vibe started in the top 10,’’ noted the 18-year-old Eastwood Collegiate arts package grad, who watched The Hunger Games during downtimes in the eight-week competition.

“But in the top five we had a conversation and it was a turning point. We just decided what we believe in our hearts and how good we are as people is way more important.’’

It’s not something I’ve seen before on a reality show. And when Bridel and company stood up and said “Hell, no!” — even if it was done in private, among themselves, without an official proclamation — it visibly changed the show’s boardroom conceived, road-weary prototype.

Instead of the snarky, girl-on-girl drama that has become a hallmark of TV talent contests, Rainbow’s teenaged subjects stood together, holding hands, eternally supportive as viewers voted them off one after another while, I’m guessing, apoplectic producers wrung their hands in frustration.

Where’s the drama? Where’s the conflict? Where’s our marketing angle?

Mind you, it’s not as if the show had any credibility to begin with: the voting procedure, judging by the emails and phone calls pouring in since the finale aired, was not only needlessly complicated, but disingenuously opaque.

And telegraphing Wade as the winner from day one through judging comments, song assignments and a presumptuous sense of destiny was probably a bad idea.

It ticked off the audience, who felt qualified to make up their own minds, and was, ironically, what convinced the five finalists to band together in a show of solidarity that resonated with viewers and even some judges.

“We did it to make Danielle feel better,’’ Bridel confided, noting Wade became upset by viewers sniping about the show’s perceived attempts to steer the voting in her favour. “She just hated the name it gave her.’’

This isn’t to criticize CBC — they didn’t do anything every other reality show from American Idol to Survivor hasn’t done a zillion times. They just did it in a clumsier, more inept (and, dare I say, Canadian) fashion.

And it’s not sour grapes about Bridel coming in third, despite the fact many considered her the more talented contestant.

Wade will make a fine Dorothy, once Canada recovers from the show’s ham-fisted efforts to ram her down our throats. And Bridel — her reputation secured by nuanced, emotionally driven performances that blew away the competition — may well become musical theatre’s answer to Jennifer Hudson, the American Idol runner-up who went on to win an Oscar.

What really intrigues me is how the feisty upstart, who became emotionally distraught every time a Dorothy rival was voted off, used the moral lesson from a Hollywood blockbuster to undermine a crass reality show and inspire the kind of positive change that can only be described as transformational.

It’s been done before, this shifting of the cultural paradigm, mostly with preaching-to-the-choir documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth and Fahrenheit 9/11, and glorified art-house flicks like Philadelphia (AIDS), Crash (racism) and Brokeback Mountain (same sex relationships).

But it’s hard to think of another populist megahit that prompted anything more than psychopathic rage.

In the end, Bridel’s civil disobedience — though I doubt she’d call it that — didn’t change the final result.

But like The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen, her stoic insistence on doing the right thing made her a symbol for something rarely seen in the fickle world of reality TV: a young woman with integrity.